Tengoku Daimakyou Episode 12 Discussion

SentiOnikawa said:
Anyone who is like "oh, wow, this came out of nowhere" when a handful of episodes ago Kiruko said something along the lines of not liking Haruki spending so much time with Robin. She clearly knew something about the dude but didn't want to upset her brother. It's likely that Robin had raped someone in their town prior and because he was such a local idol, it was swept under the rug. If Kiruko found out despite that, of course she would warn her brother in a subtle way, but wouldn't really say anything specific.

That said, yeah, the scene is jarring af because all signs up to this point implied any misgivings were just red herrings. That, or it could turn out that Robin is actually the doctor and shenanigans happened. That wouldn't really absolve the scene of any discomfort, but it would at least make it more tolerable to know that the guy everyone suspected of being the piece of trash turned out to be a body-swapping piece of trash.

Also, for anyone trying to justify the scene as "Hiruko wanting it" or otherwise, I would suggest you do some light reading on sexual predators. It's a well-documented fact that predators will often behave in a manner that enables a victim to trust them. When they do spring their trap, the victim is in shock. This means that the brain is trying to connect dots that don't normally connect together because the behavior is so disconnected from what our minds are used to. Someone putting on a shallow front to scam us is obvious because our minds can pick apart small inconsistencies. But, someone who pretends to love and respect us long-term and hasn't displayed any noticeable inconsistencies? It's almost impossible to figure out how we got from point A to point B in that situation.

Hiruko is in shock and can't process it. Afterwards, they might relapse and convince themselves that they wanted it because the brain is trying to cope at that point. It needs to fall back on a line of reasoning that makes sense in that situation. "I didn't resist because I enjoyed it." It's easy to fall into that trap and adopt a behavior that promotes it. That doesn't preclude that Hiruko enjoyed it. It means as a way of dealing with the situation, her mind convinced itself that such was the case.

And anyone who sees rape in media and says "meh, it's a narrative device" is missing the point.Yes, it is a narrative device. It is also a means to convey information to the reader/viewer. In this context, something was off with Robin to the point that Kiruko tried to warn her brother. Now, we see that come full circle. Heck, Robin was just off in general from the get-go, yet we as the viewer couldn't really connect the dots. Nothing about him seemed inconsistent enough to figure it out. The scene basically presents why our guts were rumbling when Robin was on-screen. And once again, a predator isn't going to do anything that outright triggers alarm bells in someone's mind. Any inconsistencies are ticks and any odd behavior can be excused. It should be both shocking and extremely uncomfortable Kiruko and the audience.

I honestly think Heavenly Delusion has just done some amazing work in presenting its themes thus far. The idea that someone we are close to could be so deranged is a very real and scary concept on its own. If you read a bit into it, too, Kiruko's personality and who they think they are could be considered either a means for someone to handle trauma or even a subtle dialogue on transgenderism. I know the story is making it fairly obvious that Haruki is inside Kiruko's head, but it's still neat that however intentional or not the story isn't afraid to briefly touch on both those themes.